Bangladesh will tackle BNP’s extremism with resilience, FM tells UN Human Rights Council

Bangladesh has told the UN Human Rights Council that it will handle the BNP-sponsored “violent extremism” with its “characteristic resilience and determination.”

Foreign Minister AH Mahmood Ali told a meeting in Geneva on Wednesday the alliance of BNP and Jamaat-e-Islami was promoting a “violent extremist agenda in the name of political movements.”
 
He added that people of Bangladesh “maintain their resolve not to submit to these forces.”
 
Ali said the clique was out to destroy the “non-communal, non-confrontational and pluralist identity” of Bangladesh that the current government was trying “to revive and construct over time”.
 
The minister was referring to the ongoing political programmes of the 20-party coalition that boycotted the last parliamentary elections and also the brutal murder of the writer-blogger Avijit Roy.
 
He said Avijit’s killing was “a variant manifestation of this viciously self-serving agenda.”
 

The foreign minister’s speech at the top UN human-rights forum was the first after Bangladesh was elected member in last October for the third time.

“Bangladesh feels proud to be returning to this lead platform,” he said at the beginning of his speech. This means international community kept “faith and confidence reposed in Bangladesh.”

He said Bangladesh also believed that the Human Rights Council and its mechanisms “can make significant contributions to the promotion and protection of global human rights.”
 
The “tension and debate”, the foreign minister continued, within the human rights narratives should be viewed as “a healthy sign that can deliver and nurture enduring human rights standards as global public goods”.
 
“The Council is not only capable of flagging contemporary human rights issues but also in providing effective remedies to the countless victims across the world through its different processes.”
 
“We need to nurture this body to make it more suitable and credible.”
 
Mahmood Ali thanked all for electing Bangladesh to the top human rights group and reaffirmed Bangladesh’s full support to the mandate of its new High Commissioner Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussain.
 
“We believe that cooperation, dialogue and mutual respect in light of the UN Charter is essential for improving human rights situations on the ground.”

The minister also highlighted Bangladesh government’s commitment to promote human rights, uphold justice, rule of law, democratic values, people’s empowerment, and particularly women empowerment.

The current leadership in Bangladesh remained committed to deliver on “inclusive and sustainable development in an enabling environment of democracy, good governance, human rights and rule of law”.

Ali said Bangladesh’s development strategy was focussed on empowering its people in an effort “to turn them into active agents of change, through a robust partnership among all concerned, including the civil society, NGOs and media”.
 
He also highlighted the issues of recent violence and war crimes trials as
international community keeps eyes on those issues.
 
“Our government is committed to end culture of impunity against grievous crimes, war crimes and crimes against humanity,” he said.
 
“We believe it is essential for ensuring justice and upholding rule of law,” he said and that’s why the government set “an independent national judicial process” to try perpetrators of the 1971 war crimes.

“This has, in fact, created a new paradigm in international criminal justice by allowing purely domestic courts to hold trial for internationally defined crimes.”

He, however, referring to the ongoing political programmes of the BNP-led alliance, said “the defeatist forces, who do not believe in democracy and rule of law, are challenging the democratic, non-communal and non-confrontational ethos that our government is striving to promote”.

“We shall defeat the purveyors of destruction, and will do so strictly within the bounds of the rule of law and human rights, with ‘zero tolerance’ for any aberration by any quarters”.

Ali said his government remained “committed to sustaining a vibrant and participatory political environment where all political parties would shun the path of violence, and use the democratic space in a peaceful and responsible manner”.

He sought “understanding” of the international community on the issue.

The foreign minister will also meet the new High Commissioner of the UN Human Rights Council on Wednesday in Geneva.